Hickenlooper conﬁrmed for Beaver Creek forum

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BEAVER CREEK - Organizers have announced the addition of Gov. John Hickenlooper to the Vail Global Energy Forum to be hosted in Beaver Creek in March.

For the second consecutive year, Hickenlooper joins the list of speakers at the Vail Global Energy Forum. The discussion at the forum will focus on how best to provide the energy necessary to support a productive global economy in an increasingly green, secure and affordable manner.

"Speakers of the caliber of Gov. Hickenlooper are what make this event so significant for our attendees," said Carl Colby, executive director of the Vail Global Energy Forum. "The governor is extremely knowledgeable about the energy industry and his intelligent stewardship of Colorado's energy and environmental policies going forward are a testament to his vision and leadership. We look forward to his remarks at the forum this year."

In addition to Hickenlooper, the forum has announced several additional speakers, including:

• Cathy Zoi, a partner at Silver Lake Kraftwerk. She recently served as acting secretary for energy and assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy in the Department of Energy. At the Department of Energy, Zoi managed more than $30 billion of American stimulus funding for research, investment and commercialization activities in renewable and nuclear energy, the smart grid, industrial energy efficiency, next-generation vehicles and energy storage, as well as carbon capture and sequestration.

• Erik Straser is a general partner at venture capitalist firm Mohr Davidow Ventures in Silicon Valley. He serves on the advisory council of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, as well as on the advisory boards of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Stanford's BASES, NVCA Cleantech Council and Cleantech Venture Network. His work to bring clean and efficient energy to California and beyond is highly regarded by his peers and counterparts.

• Dan Reicher is executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, a joint center of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School, where he also holds faculty positions. Reicher currently serves as senior adviser to the Atlantic Wind Connection, a project backed by Google and other investors to build an underwater transmission line for offshore wind power and grid reliability along the U.S. East Coast.

Other confirmed participants for this year's event include George P. Shultz, former U.S. secretary of state and secretary of the treasury; Jeff Bingaman, U.S. senator from New Mexico and current chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; William J. Perry, former U.S. secretary of defense; Tom Petrie, former vice chairman of Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Adm. Gary Roughead, former chief of naval operations; Arun Majumdar, former director of ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) and deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Mark Zoback, professor at Stanford University's Department of Geophysics, School of Earth Sciences; and James Sweeney, director of Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, also at Stanford.